Michael Pendlebury

Most recent commentators on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction assume that the main purpose of the second part of the B-Deduction (“BD2") is to show that human intuitions must fall under categories for reasons connected with their spatio-temporal form. But there are good reasons to hold that the Deduction as a whole is concerned with pure categories, whose application to spatio-temporal objects is undetermined. If so, BD2 cannot establish a connection between the categories and the spatio-temporal order. I advance the alternative view that the basic function of BD2 is to explain in general terms why, abstracting from their specifically human forms, intuitions must fall under categories; and that Kant’s explanation is that the forms of imaginative synthesis which yield the intuitions must correspond to the forms of intellectual synthesis involved in the functions of unity in judgement underlying the categories. This alternative interpretation accounts well for BD2's contribution to the Analytic, and an analysis of key passages shows that it can be used to make better sense of the core reasoning of BD2 than the standard assumption. Kant’s remarks about space, time, and the spatio-temporal form of human intuition in BD2 serve heuristic purposes, and are not essential to this reasoning.

I take a new approach to the problem of interpreting the controversial footnote on B160-1 of Kant’s first Critique, focusing on philosophical considerations about conditions under which synthesis is required for the representation of properties of space, and I argue for the following position. The form of outer intuition, which does not involve synthesis, represents the three-dimensionality, continuity, holism and uniformity of space; but it cannot represent space’s singularity, because the form of outer intuition is perspectival and so cannot connect spaces represented by different empirical intuitions. As this suggests, the singularity of space must be the unity which Kant means to attribute to the formal intuition in the footnote. The formal intuition’s representation of singularity can be explained on the basis of dynamical syntheses implemented through empirical syntheses. But it still qualifies as a priori because it depends ultimately on the transcendental syntheses which those empirical syntheses exemplify.

McDowell and Putnam are right to insist that objective knowledge is possible only because we are open to the world in perception, but neither of them offers an adequate account of the relationship between perception and perceptual judgments (which are at the core of our most fundamental knowledge of the world). This paper, intended as a contribution to the development of a sophisticated commonsense realism, proposes an account in terms of which perceptions acquire the status of perceptual judgments to the extent that they are imbedded in and engaged with the high-level patterns of consciousness and reasoning characteristic of judgments. This in turn explains how the contents of perceptual judgments which are to be understood as refinements of contents of the relevant perceptions apply to a world that is largely independent of the perceiver and knower

In order to perceive something, one must have a sense experience which it causes and which has a content that fits it appropriately. But veridical hallucinations show that more is required, viz., that the experience must also be caused by the object of perception in the right sort of way. The best account of what this amounts to is that the object causes the experience by means of a “reliable mechanism,” i.e., a causal mechanism which is generally apt to connect objects to experiences with contents that fit those objects. The paper advances and defends a careful account of this position and its application to the distinction between state of affairs perception, event perception and thing perception.

Traditional Marxists hold that capitalist modes of production are unjustly exploitative. In 'Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality' G. A. Cohen argues that this ``exploitation charge'' commits traditional Marxists to the thesis that people own themselves (``self-ownership''). If so, then traditional Marxism is vulnerable to a libertarian challenge to its commitment to equality. Cohen, therefore, recommends that Marxists abandon the exploitation charge. This paper undermines Cohen's case for the alleged link between the exploitation charge and self-ownership primarily by defending an account of the exploitation charge that does not involve self-ownership or compromise the Marxist commitment to equality.

This book explains Kant's major claims in the Critique of Pure Reason, how they hang together, and how Kant supports them, clarifying the way in which his reasoning unfolds over the course of this groundbreaking work. The book concentrates on key parts of the B edition that are essential to a basic understanding of Kant's project and provides a sympathetic account of Kant's reasoning about perception, space, time, judgment, substance, causation, objectivity, synthetic a priori knowledge, and the illusions of transcendent metaphysics.

Kant holds that “on the basis of their actions” we can infer that “animals act in accordance with representations” (Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5: 464, fn.). Animals, like humans, have the powers of sensibility, imagination and choice, but lack the human powers of understanding, reason and free choice. They also lack first-person representation, consciousness, concepts and inner sense. Nevertheless, animals have an analog of reason that involves connections of representations that explain their behavior. Kant cannot call such connections beliefs because he identifies beliefs with judgments, but a present-day Kantian who distinguishes animal beliefs from judgments can do so. Kant’s examples of the types of things to which animals are responsive make it clear that he holds that they perceive—and, more generally, represent—Gibsonian affordances. Such affordances go beyond the information contained in an animal’s sensory impressions at any given moment, so their perceptual representation must involve what Kant calls synthesis of the imagination. But this does not imply that Kant thinks that human perception is like animal perception in the sense that it does not involve or depend upon concepts.

The emphasis in Part II is on the truth conditions of belief sentences. The chief aim is to show how the ontological account of belief advanced in Part I can serve as a basis for a theory of truth conditions for such sentences. The formal theory developed in Part II can, however, be discussed without reference to the earlier ontology. Chapter 11 presents the basic framework for the theory, and also deals with the truth conditions of the belief sentences which are construed as basic. In the later chapters the basic framework is extended to handle a variety of less simple cases, including belief sentences involving indexicals and quasi-indicators , proper names and definite descriptions , quantifying in , and "propositional quantification" . ;Chapters 2 - 6 contain background and motivation for Chapter 7, in which the central tenets of an alternative account of belief are presented. This account is an "adverbial" account in the broad sense of the term, but does not require the "adverbialization" of belief sentences. The account is developed further in Chapter 8, which deals with the truth and falsity of beliefs, and in Chapter 9, which deals with statements about shared beliefs. Chapter 10, which completes Part I, deals briefly with two further theories of belief which share some of the attractions of the account of Chapter 7. ;The emphasis in Part I is on ontological matters. Chapter 2 presents a framework in terms of which it is possible to discuss the identity conditions of belief situations without invoking any particular theory of belief. Chapter 3 describes the propositional view of belief, and draws out its implications concerning the identity conditions of belief situations in terms of the framework of Chapter 2. Chapters 4 and 5 contain a detailed discussion of the identity conditions of belief situations. It is argued in these chapters that the propositional view cannot do justice to the facts about these identity conditions. Chapter 6 deals with Perry's alternative to the propositional view. It is argued that Perry's theory fails to avoid all the difficulties of propositionalism, even though it is an improvement on it. ;This essay deals with the ontology of belief and the truth-conditional semantics of belief sentences. The chief aim of the essay is to develop a strong alternative to the view that propositions must be appealed to in an adequate philosophical treatment of belief and belief sentences

According to a common account, grammatical mood is merely a conventional indicator of force with no semantic significance. Focusing on indicatives, interrogatives and imperatives, I advance two reasons to reject this “force treatment” of mood. First, it can be shown that the mood of a subordinate clause can have semantic significance that affects the sense of a sentence in which it is embedded—which the force treatment cannot accommodate. Second, the speech acts of asserting, asking and ordering have something in common even when they do not involve the same descriptive content, namely, the commitment that is present when one speaks seriously for oneself. The force treatment cannot accommodate the fact that when we subtract this positive force from the act, what we are left with is not bare descriptive content, but the mere expression of a proposition, question or order (as appropriate). I conclude by suggesting that the sense of a mood indicator is a function from descriptive content to a proposition, question or order.

This article defends the view that nonlinguistic animals could be capable of thought (in the sense in which the mere possession of beliefs and desires is sufficient for thought). It is easy to identify flaws in Davidson's arguments for the thesis that thought depends upon language if one is open to the idea that some nonlinguistic animals have beliefs. It is, however, necessary to do more than this if one wishes to engage with the deeper challenge underlying Davidson's reasoning, viz., that of providing a principled account of what it takes for a representer to qualify as a thinker. Heil attempts to construct a Davidsonian account on the basis of the hypothesis that the semantic opacity essential to thought is rooted in second-order representation (which Davidson ties to language), but it can be shown that second-order representation is neither necessary nor sufficient for opacity. A reasonable non-Davidsonian account of thought in terms of which sufficiently sophisticated nonlinguistic animals qualify as thinkers is, however, possible. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(3) 2002: 200-218

Realism about affirmations of a given type is the view that these affirmations are to be understood as assertions that attempt to describe a largely independent reality, and that they are correct if and only if they manage to do so (regardless of whether they can be known to be correct). Objectivisim about affirmations of a given type is the view that they are subject to adequate, non-arbitrary standards of correctness, and that there are a significant number of non-trivial affirmations of this type that can be known to be correct. On this understanding, realism, objectivism, and their denials can be combined in four possible ways: realism with objectivism, realism with antiobjectivism, antirealism with objectivism, and antirealism with antiobjectivism. This paper clarifies the distinction between realism and objectivism, illustrates it applications in various fields of philosophy, and draws attention to its value.

The intentionality of virtually all thought that is distinctive of human beings is linguistically based and constitutively normative. As Robert Brandom claims in Making It Explicit, this normativity is best understood as having roots in social practice. But Brandom is wrong to insist that all intentionality is normative (thus denying intentionality to nonhuman, nonlinguistic animals). For even the simple social practices that ground the most primate norms presuppose robust nonnormative intentionality. Furthermore, Brandom’s appeal to perception to supplement his informal semantics with a view to avoiding complete indeterminacy of linguistic meaning is either ineffective or arbitrary and unjustified unless perceptual states are recognized as having nonnormative intentional contents that go way beyond the mere differential responsiveness which he allows them.

The main aim of this paper is to work toward an account of how sensibility and understanding combine in perceptual judgments, with the emphasis on the role of sensibility in both the justification of such judgments and the explanation of how it is possible for them to apply to an objective world. I argue that in themselves sensory intuitions function as (animal level) beliefs about the environment, and that these beliefs have the status of perceptual judgments to the extent to which they are embedded in and engaged with the high-level patterns of consciousness and reasoning characteristic of full-blown human judgment. In terms of this account, sensibility is seamlessly integrated with understanding in perceptual judgments. This does not, however, imply that its contribution to perceptual judgments cannot be separated analytically, for in my terms the basic justification and objective reference of perceptual judgments are directly inherited from the sensory intuitions (functioning as sensory beliefs) which constitute those judgments. I conclude by showing how this account can be used to undermine John McDowell’s claim that any attempt to assign a separable contribution to sensibility cannot avoid the Myth of the Given.

Competing metaethical theories are sometimes cast as alternative ways of responding to an inconsistency between two apparent features of moral judgments, viz., that they are truth-apt expressions of belief and that they have motivational force. I argue that this is an oversimplification that fails to address some important data that can be accommodated on the basis of a straightforward “good reasons” account of “ought” judgments that explains why certain of these judgments have motivational force will others do not. This solution applies equally to all “ought” judgments regardless of whether they are advanced from the moral point of view, so it is not threatened by the existence of amoralists or moral nihilists. And it does not in its own right involve a commitment to any particular metaethical theory. This shows that the problem of motivation does not provide a good framework for the major metaethical debates.

Focusing on the simple demonstrative ‘that’ and demonstrative expressions of the form ‘that F,’ this paper reviews four accounts of what determines the denotations of demonstratives—the description theory, according to which the work is done by a proper definite description associated with the demonstrative; the causal theory, according to which it is done by a non-deviant causal chain connecting the object and the demonstrative; the demonstration theory, according to which it is done by a demonstration accompanying the demonstrative; and the mental reference theory, according to which it is done by the mental act of reference that the demonstrative expresses—and it offers evidence of the superiority of the mental reference theory.

This paper presents an approach to the elementary temporal semantics of the English tense system, the atoms of which are the present tense, the past tense, the progressive auxiliary, the perfective auxiliary, and the modal will as used for the future. It offers accounts of the forms of temporal semantics of core verb phrases of different categories and of the atoms of the tense system, using machinery that that yields appropriate compositional accounts of the temporal semantics of compound, tensed verb phrases. This machinery also yields a novel account of the Kenny-Vendler classification of core verb phrases.